History Repeats Itself
by tongue in cheek scribe
Summary: A short drabble about fathers and sons...


Title: History Repeats Itself

Author: TICS

Summary: A short drabble about fathers and sons.

Rated: PG

Genre: AU, humor

"There are two of them."

"Has the remedy the healers gave you not yet worn off? There are not two."

"There are two of them, Eärendil. I would knowI was there."

"Elwing, there cannot be two. I only agreed to having one."

"Then you should have been sober when you did the deed, because you made two. Look for yourself if you don't believe me."

Peering into the cradle, Eärendil's eyes widened as he realized that there were indeed, two identical tiny babes wrapped in identical lacy white blankets, with two identical shocks of pitch-black hair sticking straight up on their identically slightly cone-shaped heads.

"Put one back."

"Don't be ridiculous, Eärendil, I cannot simply put one back. We have two sons."

"You may have twoI will still only have one. I pick" he wiggled his finger back and forth between the two bundles, "that one."

"You cannot pick and choose, Eärendil - they are both your sons."

"Their heads are misshapen - they will be stupid."

"_All_ babies are born with heads like that, Eärendil," Elwing replied, rolling her eyes at her husband's naiveté.

"_My_ head wasn't like that."

"How could you _possibly_ know what your head looked like when you were born, Eärendil?"

"My mother always told me that I was a perfect baby."

"Your mother had a penchant for Ent-draughts."

"_Your_ mother had a mustache!"

"You are starting to annoy me, Eärendil. Do you really wish to annoy me?" Elwing asked. The look on her face told him that, no, he did not wish to annoy her, and that annoying her at this moment in time could very well prove deadly for him.

"What are we going to do with _two_ of them? Especially two that are so alike! I suppose we could keep one as a spare" Elwing's voice was low and full of venom. "I just passed those two fat melons through the very small opening between my legsI am in no mood for your levity! You have two sons - two very equal, very identical, sons! Contend with it."

"Yes, dear," Eärendil replied meekly, his eyes wandering from the two, rather round butterballs in the cradle to the apex of his wife's thighs and back again, a shudder running down his spine.

At that moment, the babies started wailing, and didn't stop for nearly five hundred years.

"ELROS! Put that down!" Eärendil bellowed, running after the rambunctious chubby toddler whose little fat legs carried him teetering around the courtyard, Eärendil's spyglass clutched in his grubby little hands. Elros gleefully screamed - his favorite, and it often seemed to Eärendil, only - vocal expression.

Overtaking his shrieking son, he took the spyglass away from him, Elros' gleeful scream quickly turning into Elros' angry scream. Turning from his red-faced, screeching son, about to place the spyglass back on the table from where the young Peredhil had grabbed it, Eärendil spotted his other son cheerfully rolling about in a mudpile, happily howling up a storm.

"ELROND! Your mother will kill me! Get out of that mud instantly!" he roared, running to catch Elrond by the scruff of the neck and haul him, dripping and oozing mud from the watery hole he'd been playing in, his own fat little legs kicking and flinging mud all over his father's jerkin. Elrond's happy howl quickly turned into Elrond's angry howl - which, once again, Eärendil was positive were one and the same.

Depositing Elrond, still howling and stamping his little feet, Eärendil turned to see Elros chasing some type of small, striped animal under a bush, screaming joyously.

"NO, ELROS! Dear Eru, not a skunk!" Eärendil cried, diving to grab his son's chunky legs and pull him out from under the bushalbeit a moment too late. Elros' joyous scream turned into Elros' miserable scream as Eärendil held up his reeking son upside down by one leg.

Turning his head to try to avoid the worst of the horrible odor emanating from his son's body, Eärendil saw Elrond stuffing something square, silver, and definitely non-edible into his mouth.

"NO, ELROND!" Eärendil bellowed, running toward his other son, who was chortling happily, even though his mouth was stuffed with his father's tobacco tin. Still carrying a disconsolately shrieking Elros by one leg, he stuck his fingers in Elrond's mouth, pulling out the tobacco tin, earning himself a hard bite from Elrond's only two teeth. Elrond ceased his happy chortling, and segued into his cranky screeching, which sounded suspiciously like Elros' miserable screaming. Both were loud, shrill, and never-ending.

Picking up Elrond by the scruff of the neck, still dangling Elros by one leg, Eärendil looked heavenward and prayed for the Valar to take him, right thereon the spot.

"There are two of them."

"Has the remedy the healers gave you not worn off yet? There are not two."

"There are two of them, Elrond. I would knowI was there."

"Celebrian, there cannot be two. I only agreed to having one."

"Nonetheless, there are two. Go ahead - call Erestor and have him count them for youthere are two."

Elrond gazed at the two identical tiny babes wrapped in identical lacy white blankets, with two identical shocks of pitch-black hair sticking straight up on their identically slightly cone-shaped heads, and wondered what he ever did to deserve two of them.

At that moment the babies started wailing, and did not stop for nearly five hundred years.

The End


End file.
